The Department of Education has released the final peer reviewers' scores for Race to the Top (RTT) finalists. I find it very worrisome.
Though I'm generally supportive of the two winners, after that, the results are startling. The weak Georgia in third? The excellent Louisiana in 11th?
So I created a scatter plot showing my rankings compared to ED's.?? You'll see there is no correlation whatsoever (an R-squared of .oo4!)
So then I just drew a 45-degree line from the origin showing where the states would've fallen had ED and I agreed on each.?? Apart from MA, which we both had in 13th, there are differences in every state.?? Those above the line are states that I ranked higher (better); states below the line had better ratings from ED.
Now, here's the telling point.?? States that fared better with ED had union support levels of 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 93%, and 31% (Illinois).?? South Carolina didn't have a union rating because it is right-to-work, but 95% of its districts signed on.
States that fared worse with ED had union support levels of 0%, 4%, 8%, 41%, 61%, 78%, 99%, and 100%.
In fact, after the one outlier (Illinois) is removed, 40 percent of the difference between my rankings and ED's is explained by the level of union support.?? For every 10 percentage points of additional union support, a state improved its ranking in the eyes of the Department one space compared to mine. In other words, imagine I had two states tied for 6th, if one had a 30 percent advantage in union support, ED would've moved it up to 3rd place.
Wow.
--Andy Smarick